1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a method and apparatus for recognizing patterns and in particular to a method and apparatus for dynamically switching between fonts or groups of fonts in a multi-font automatic optical character reader.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In many document processing applications, it becomes necessary to read successive documents which may be encoded with different types of fonts. For example, the usual operation of a remittance processing document sorter involves an operator manually keying in the amount of a check which is to be applied to a given account. For example, when the remittances which are received during a period, such as a day, are to be processed, all of the envelopes which are received are opened. The check of each remitter is stacked together with the respective card or stub which contains information concerning each particular account. This card or stub is typically sent to the remitter, and is returned with her check. The stacked checks and stubs then are placed into a document feeder area at a document sorter whereby the stubs are first read by the document sorter. The stub is then followed by a check of a given amount. The operator of the document sorter then visually reads the amount of the check and then encodes the check with that amount. This operation is done since most document sorters are only capable of reading one type of font, and the font used on checks and remittance stubs are almost always different.
In order to save operator effort, it is well known in prior art to provide an operator actuated key-board switch whereby after a multi-font document sorter has read the stub, the document sorter is triggered to read the magnetic ink characters on the check. The characters on the check are read so that the checks may be sorted according to transit routing numbers. The operator then triggers the document sorter to read the next stub. This procedure, however, still requires considerable operator effort in that the operator must successively trigger the document sorter to read the appropriate font.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus wherein the document sorter automatically switches between different fonts without operator intervention.